


I have been running so long (you make me want to stay)

by olivemartini



Series: All The Lovely Ones Have Scars [32]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Drabble, F/M, PTSD, Pepper's trying, Slice of Life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 07:17:40
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,089
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15746940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: It doesn't make sense, what she was looking at.  Pepper had reached down to find her phone and instead all she found was food, piles and piles to food, stacked floor to mattress underneath Tony's bed.





	I have been running so long (you make me want to stay)

**Author's Note:**

> To my consistent commenters, I just wanted to tell you guys that I'm all moved into college! No, it's not as scary as I thought. Yes, I cried when my mom left. No, I still have no idea how to do laundry here, but I figured out where the trash went and that's good enough. Thanks for the well wishes! Hopefully I can still update at least once a week, but just know that I don't intend to give up on this series anytime soon!

They've got a routine together, her and Tony.

On the days he manages to sleep, she always wakes him up.  Rouses him out of bed with a smile and a touch to the shoulder and a steaming mug of coffee waiting for him on the bathroom counter, the incentives he needs to roll out of bed and start to get ready.  Pepper waits for him, the door open just a crack ( _the unmentioned agreement after the bout of alcohol poisoning from a few months ago_ ), trying to track his movements from the way the shadows flicker at her feet.  And when she thinks he's paying attention, she'll start to rattle off the list of meetings and emails and phone calls he needs to attend to, and eventually he'll talk her into a eating a real breakfast first, because Tony knows that she has a tendency to skip meals in order to meet deadlines.

That was the plan for today, too, only she dropped her phone under the bed and instead of finding it, she came back up with a candy bar clutched in her face.

It wasn't a problem, really, not until she dropped to her hands and knees on the carpet and squinted into the semi darkness and all she could see was food.  Piles and piles of it, stacked floor to mattress- cans of tomato soup, mountains of candy bars, boxes of crackers and canned peaches.  

"Tony?"  Her voice had climbed a few octaves, but honestly, there was only so much crazy someone can take before they start to get a little scared.  "What's this?"

Tony kicks the door open so it bangs into the wall, not bothering to look at her.  "What's what?"

"This!"  He's still got flecks of shaving cream on his face.  It's surprisingly endearing.  "All this..."  

She waved her hand at the floor because she couldn't find the words to describe it, and when he still didn't turn around to look at her, she threw the crushed candy bar.  It hit him in the back of the head.  

"Pepper."  He was asking her not to do this, not to make him have this conversation.  She could see it in his eyes, how afraid he was of all the things he was becoming.  "Pep."

Pepper wasn't listening.  She was still leaning under the bed, buried up to her shoulder, yanking out cans and containers and molding loaves of bread, pulling it all out onto his bedroom floor.  Tony came to stand at the end of the pile and bent to pick up a long Kit Kat.

"I knew these were your favorite,"  He says, as calm as if he is telling her that he liked her new pair of shoes.  "I added a bunch."

It was sweet.  It was sweet in the way that only Tony can be sweet, fumbling and haphazard and more likely to destroy someone than build them up, but it was at least thoughtful, the idea that he had included her in his hoarding.

If misguided.

Her favorite chocolate bar was a snickers.

 "But why?"  Raisins, too.  That was the last thing, a box of raisins, and she chucks it at his feet.  "You don't even  _like_ raisins."

Tony doesn't answer, just stares at her in that way that he used to when she first started working for him, where he was trying to decide whether or not she was stupid, or if he just wasn't good at explaining.  She hadn't seen that look in a long time.  It's been a while since they weren't operating on the same wavelength.  

"Do you know what it's like to be hungry?"  He considered the books of raisins at his feet and then he picks them up, tucks it into his pocket.  "Like, really hungry.  Starving."

Pepper opened her mouth and then closed it again.  She didn't, and Tony knew perfectly well that she didn't, but that wasn't what this was about.  This was about him saying that he was fine and consistently proving to her, over and over and over again, that he wasn't.

"Because I do.  They didn't feed us very often."  His face always closes off to her when he talks about anything to do with Afghanistan or Stane, like he was a house and someone was boarding up all the windows.  "You would be surprised, what you eat, when you're out of options."

She doesn't know what that means.  This time, she trusts what he had said before and doesn't ask.  Not everything is meant to be shared.  Some stories, whether they be made out of scars or secrets, are meant to be yours alone.

"But Tony.  This is crazy."  She had her hands on both of his shoulders just to make him look at her.  He always tries to run away from her.  "You know that, right?"

_Crazy is the wrong word.  You don't say crazy to someone who needs help, even when their every action drips with it.  That's an outdated term, anyways._

"I was starving.  Honest to god starving, and I don't want to do that again."  He threw the raisins back onto the pile and it was like a slap to the face, then he turned away, back towards the bathroom.  "Do what you want, call it what you want, but I call this security."

"I'm going to clean it up."  That's what she does.  She cleans messes, she fixes problems, she wipes away the wrinkles in his life so it's like he wasn't there.  Pepper's not ready to admit the trauma of the last few months is something that she cannot fix.  "And we're going to  _talk_ about this, Tony, about everything."

Pepper was used to a Tony that would fight.  She almost preferred it, when the alternative was this, her stumbling in the dark with no guard rails to stop her from falling.  

 _I just want to help you,_ she thinks, looking up at him from her spot on the floor, that loaf of moldy bread curling underneath her hands.   _Why won't you let me help you? How is this, any of this, the better option?_

"Like I said, do whatever you want."  He paused with his hand on the door handle and gave her a little smile, soft and understanding and half condescending, but she didn't know towards who.  "But I'm just going to fill it up again."

This time, when he goes back into the bathroom, he shuts the door all the way.

She can hear the lock click behind him.

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so this wasn't the best -a little stilted, a little short, a little out of character for Tony- but it's all I've got in me today. Hope you still like it.  
> Also, the title in no way pertains to the story, but whatever.
> 
>  
> 
> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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